We have come across a bunch of failed service attempts from a lot of smartphones users in the past, however, this new one in particular which we are discussing here is quite unusual. Aklank Jain, a OnePlus 3 owner is now asked to pay about 1.5x the price of the phone in order to get it repaired. Surprised right? Well, the angry and frustrated user took his frustration to Facebook where he has reported about this issue in detail tagging OnePlus Brand as well the app which we used to book the servicing of the phone.

In his Facebook post, the user has explained that the phone was exposed to water that was accidentally spilled on his phone. He then switched off the phone to prevent any damage the device, however, it was too late. Upon restarting the smartphone back after a couple of days, he found out that pretty much everything was working fine except the back and recent buttons on the front which are capacitive touch keys. Luckily, he had an accidental warranty which he claimed and gave the smartphone for servicing through Servify.

For those of you who don’t know, Servify is a service which enables OnePlus device owners to connect with the Brand Authorised Service Centres through the OnePlus Care App. However, what followed later was not something that he had expected or anyone would expect for that matter. Servify reverted back to him stating that the claim request is beyond their economic repair cost. He was eligible to get only 6,000 INR as reimbursement as per their policy. However, the estimated cost of the repair was 48,030 INR which is about 1.5x the original cost at which he had purchased the smartphone.

The price was apparently quoted to him by the OnePlus Authorised Service Centres as per the diagnosis of the device. You can check out the screenshot attached above for more details on the estimated repair cost. Apparently, the user is not getting any sort of response from the OnePlus team upon requesting for more info. While this could also be the result of a careless job by Servify or someone who is trying to make money in between, however, this is certainly not acceptable considering the fact that they have an official OnePlus tie-up. You can check out the original post by following the link given below. We hope OnePlus addresses this issue and comes out with a fair bit of explanation for the same.

Update1: From the Phone Owner – Hi PhoneRadar, Thanks for covering my story. This really helped to get a response from them (I still wonder how general public gets response on their grievances from these officials). I just got a call from OnePlus officials few mins back, they said they are ready to offer 50% discount on the repair cost which is 24k. I declined the offer stating two reasons: first being I can’t afford. Second being it’s just 4k less than the actual price so it’s better if I buy a new phone with good post-sale services rather than ending up going through all these troubles if something happens to my phone again. So I’ve asked them to return my phone.

This whole incident has caused so much inconvenience to me which can’t be expressed (PFB the mail I had sent them last night stating the same) I won’t let it go. They need to learn how important is to address customer grievances in building a great company.

They gave 50% discount to me because this whole thing went viral, what about other customers who didn’t raise their voice? Why are they making an exception for me if they think their policies are good enough not to be changed?

Update2: From OnePlus – Hi there! We’d like to share the summary of the case which you have recently posted: bit.ly/2sNct0J on your Social Media Channel. The accessories and spare parts will have taxes and import duties imposed on them individually so the repair cost will be higher. However, as an exception, we have contacted the customer and asked him to pay 50% of the repair cost excluding the reimbursement of Rs 6000 which is being given by the Servify team to replace the product. The customer is not agreeing to our terms but we are still in touch with the customer and if he shares any positive response then definitely we are looking forward to getting this fixed. We appreciate your support in this matter.

Note: We just hope that OnePlus intervenes into this issue & sorts with Servify & gives the customer a fair treatment that might include a brand new replacement or at least fixing the phone. In the current situation, the customer is still right because he will have to pay Rs 24000 for a phone that’s retailing at Rs 28,000 & going to be overtaken by a new model this week i.e. the OnePlus 5.

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Karthik is a Computer Science Graduate and a Tech Aficionado who has always found himself fascinated or playing around with all the latest and the best from the world of smartphones and beyond. When he is not working on any smartphone or covering the latest scoop, you can often find playing his favorite PS4 titles.

I think now that if someone wants to buy a flagship phone like OnePlus3 or 5, he should get double the amount of money that the phone costs and keep it ready if something happens to the phone to spare it to the Brand!! 🤔

Hammers

What an absurd story. Of course replacing most of the parts one at a time by hand is more expensive than a new phone. This is true for nearly everything. Oneplus obviously charges more for individually packing the parts and shipping them to a repair center. Labor will obviously be a lot more expensive to take apart one phone by hand one at a time than to do it with robots and experts who put the same board in all day on an assembly line.

sanjay_addya

This has happened to me for a Samsung Galaxy Trend phone also a few years back. The phone accidentally fell on a beach during holidays and I took it to the service center for repairs. They gave me an estimate of ₹ 14,000 to replace the screen and motherboard for a phone which I bought for ₹7,500. When I asked the customer care executive, that would he pay this amount for this the phone. He laughed and said, I know this is absurd price but the ERP software is showing me this quote and I can’t do anything about that.

Thank u for sharing your story u saved my 38k. What u gona do next ?
Now on i will judge a cell brand by its service.
Any comments about iphone service ?should i go for iphone 7 considering its servicing ?